Who is Blu Hydrangea? Meet the RuPaul’s Drag Race UK queen and make-up expert
The Belfast-born queen is hoping to slay the competition with her insane make-up skills
Like its US sister, the Drag Race UK queens will serve up some seriously good make-up skills. In particular: Blu Hydrangea. Before competing in the competition, the Belfast-based queen gifted her Instagram followers a selection of colourful and downright scary set of makeovers.
“[Hydrangea] is queen of the makeup brush and her strength lies in her mug,” she explains. “[I’m] like a GCSE art project, high fashion from outer space, a cartoon character - with muppet realness.”
Will her flawless make-up slay the other nine competing queens in the competition?
Blu Hydrangea: The key facts
Age: 23
From: Belfast
More like this
Instagram: bluhydrangea_
Twitter: @BluHydrangea_
Strengths: In case you haven’t guessed by now, it’s her out-there looks. “Blu’s greatest strengths are her makeup, which is always flawless, my lovely outfits and my creative drive,” she says. “One day, I might be a beautiful lady and the next I might be a pineapple.
“One time I wanted to be all five of the spice girls so I made life-size puppets of all the girls (I was Geri) - if that’s not creative I don’t know what is!”
Weaknesses: “I think what I would most struggle with is a comedy challenge,” she says. “I don’t find myself overly funny - hopefully the world does but I don’t think I am. If they set me up to do a roast I know I’d bomb.com.”
Who is Blu Hydrangea?
Blu hails from Belfast, a city with a tiny drag scene, according to her: “We literally have two gay bars opposite each other and you’re either on one side or the other and that’s it.”
She adds: “My partner and I have been together for four and a half years. I would love to marry him but it’s not even legal. We don’t even want to get engaged yet until it’s legal and then we can do our thing. So hopefully, I’ll inspire people and hopefully , one day we’ll be able to get married in our own country.”
Finding it hard to find a stage in her home city, Blu took to Instagram and built up a solid following of over 40,000 fans with her creative makeup skills. She also posts tutorials on YouTube.
But why call herself Blu Hydrangea? It’s already a pretty heart-warming story. “My drag name comes from some Blu Hydrangea bush that is in my garden,” she explains. “My nanna told me that we had to plant it with a rusty nail so that it turns into a beautiful blue hydrangea.
“I love that story of something coming from a rusty dirty old nail into something beautiful which is kind of like me as a person. I came from someone who wasn’t so confident who was a little bit of a nerd into this glamorous colourful being - I love it.”
When is RuPaul’s Drag Race UK on TV?
Dropping on BBC Three via BBC iPlayer, you can watch Drag Race from October 2019.
Including Blu Hydrangea, 10 queens will compete for the title of the UK’s next drag superstar. Like the US version, the winner will be chosen by RuPaul Charles with the assistance of Michelle Visage and rotating judges Graham Norton and Alan Carr.
Each week, one of the shows guest stars will also appear on the judging panel. These include Cheryl, Spider-man actor Andrew Andrew Garfield and Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams.
